Against The Grain

• Did you know there was a Official Groupie Site for William Luse?
• Congratulations to Patrick Sweeney (Extreme Catholic - 12/17/03) and Oswald Sobrino (Catholic Analysis - 12/18/03) on the one-year anniversary of their respective blogs this week. For other bloggers whose anniversaries I've missed, please forgive my absent-mindedness.
• The Bruderhof website posts Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Advent sermon The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst:

  We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

  Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love. God makes us happy as only children can be happy.

• Lane Core posts an email from a commanding officer to his marines on our accomplishments in Iraq, little recognized and underreported by the media (as the CO says, "it is much easier to point out the errors a man makes when he makes the tough decisions; rarely is the positive as aggressively pursued"). It's a pretty impressive list and news worth sharing.
• Beginnning Friday night and through Dec 27th, our Jewish brothers & sisters will be celebrate Chanukah, a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar which commemorates the victory of the Maccabees, the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple and the miracle of oil that burned for 8 days (whence comes the custom of lighting the menorah). Because of the significance of oil to the story, a traditional practice among Ashkenazic Jews on Chanukah is to make latkes ("potato pancakes").